Wolf AliceのEllie Rowsellとの20の質問

Sporting head-to-toe leather, her long hair flowing freely around her face, Wolf Alice frontwoman Ellie Rowsell looked every inch the rock star – part Stevie Nicks, part Joan Jett – as she took to the stage last Sunday, delivering a set that brought an already buoyant Green Man 2026 to a rousing close.

Wolf Alice is a band that knows how to shape-shift, slipping deftly between grunge and shoegaze, folk and heavy rock, punk and pop. “I’m always a fan of bands who never write the same song twice,” Rowsell told the Guardian in 2013, two years before Wolf Alice made waves with their debut album, My Love Is Cool – and it’s an ethos that has come to define the north London quartet, who have never used the same producer twice.

On their latest album, The Clearing, that restless spirit takes on a distinctly 1970s flavour, drawing on soft rock, glam and classic pop in what is perhaps the band’s most refined album yet. At the centre is Rowsell: a compelling storyteller, whose lyrics blur personal experience with fictional daydreaming, and a dexterous vocalist who can segue from quiet fragility to an all-out yowl.

It’s been a big year for the band, who since the release of The Clearing last August have headlined increasingly vast venues, including two nights at London’s O2 Arena in December and Finsbury Park in July. “I like playing bigger shows, it feels more unreal and therefore more out of body, which is kind of what I crave,” Rowsell tells us ahead of Green Man, Wales’s best-loved festival, set against the backdrop of the Brecon Beacons. “I also like having a certain level of production because I like having a bit of theatre entwined.”

It was a perfect taste of what was to follow: during the set, Wolf Alice brought arena-level production to the Mountain Stage, veering in typical style from a snarling rendition of their 2017 song Yuk Foo to a dreamy cover of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You, joined by Anna Calvi and Dove Ellis.

Here, the 34-year-old musician sates our curiosity by answering 20 questions.

1. Are there any mantras you live by?
I live by different mantras at different times, I think. At the moment I’m trying to remember that you shouldn’t save things for the next time. “Seize the day” – but maybe “no rehearsal” sounds cooler.

2. What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?
Salt.

3. What’s your earliest memory?
I remember going to school and someone asking me who my favourite Teletubby was. I didn’t know what that meant because I’d never seen Teletubbies before and I remember feeling embarrassed that I was missing out on whatever Teletubbies was.

4. What’s your worst nightmare?
Wet Moth.

5. Can you name a favourite song lyric?
“I just wanted to be one of The Strokes, now look at the mess you made me make”, and it’s the album opener too. Iconic!

6. What film have you watched the most?
Pride and Prejudice, the Joe Wright version.

7. What makes you happy?
Pride and Prejudice, the Joe Wright version.

8. What makes you sad?
People being lonely.

9. If you weren’t a musician, what would you be?
Maybe I’d work in the cinema. I love a cinema foyer – and I like people watching, popcorn and movies.

10. What trip have you always wanted to take?
I want to see the Scottish Highlands. It feels so close and yet so far.

Is there a musician or band that made you think, “I want to do that”? “Kings of Leon. I loved their music … They didn’t seem overly confident, even though they were cool and talented, which made me feel like maybe I could exist in that world as a shy person” – Ellie Rowsell

11. Is there a musician or band that made you think, “I want to do that”?
Kings of Leon. I loved their music, and their haircuts, but mainly their music. They didn’t seem overly confident, even though they were cool and talented, which made me feel like maybe I could exist in that world as a shy person.

12. You and Joff Oddie met via a ‘find a bandmate’-style internet forum. What was your first meeting like? Looking back, was there anything about it that pre-empted what followed?
Oh my god, I don’t really remember. I went with Sadie, who used to be in Wolf Alice. I imagine we weren’t very nice to him. We were very giggly when we were together – especially around boys. I’m sure he had a horrible time, but he put up with it and he’s been putting up with me ever since!

13. Wolf Alice is a famously close band. What’s the secret to remaining friends through it all?
I’m trying to answer this simply but I think there are a lot of factors, actually. Maybe the main thing is to keep the music at the heart of everything and make it the only thing you take seriously.

14. Who’s your ultimate style icon?
At the moment, I like looking at pictures of Marianne Faithfull, Jane Birkin, of course, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry. I dunno, I don’t really dress like any of them, but I like looking at them.

15. The Clearing feels like a more mature album thematically, with ideas around getting older and figuring things out – or not. If you could go back and give young Ellie, just starting out in music, one piece of advice, what would it be?
Take note and pay attention to all the ideas you already have and follow them through. They aren’t stupid and they make you who you are.

16. When you released your album Blue Weekend, you talked about the strange consequences of writing autofictionally – and people feeling entitled when it comes to knowing which lyrics are “true”. Was that something you thought about or made peace with when writing The Clearing?
Yes, that was something that gave me big anxiety with Blue Weekend, and it’s not that I’ve made peace with it exactly, it’s more that I don’t want it to get in the way of me making exactly what I want or need to make. That’s more important than worrying what people think. Maybe…

17. You decided to record The Clearing in LA with producer Greg Kurstin and engineer Julian Burg. It’s the second time you’ve made an album there – although much of it was written in London. How much does the place where you write or record influence the final record?
I think it probably does influence the work in that it influences the vibe. There’s a side to LA that’s very inspiring – the beautiful weather, the musical history, the absurdity of it all – but there’s also a side that makes me feel frustrated and depressed. We were lucky working with Greg and Julian though. The people are more important than the place at the end of the day.

18. You’ve spent so much of this summer playing festivals, alongside your own increasingly huge headline shows. Do you approach festival sets any differently from a venue full of people who’ve specifically come to see you?
Yes, I think at a festival you want to go in all guns blazing. It’s harder to keep people’s attention if they don’t know who you are, so you want to acknowledge that. We keep it more fast paced, and often throw in a cover.

19. Wolf Alice has also been vocal about the need to support emerging musicians in an industry where it’s increasingly difficult to break through without significant financial backing. Which up-and-coming bands or musicians are you most excited about at the moment?
I love Julia Cumming’s debut album. I like an artist called Junior Mesa, and Sekko, Get Down Services, Jacob Alon and Adéla. My brother has made an album that he just needs to put out there too. He’s my favourite new artist [laughs]. I need to see more bands. It’s hard to be in a band so I love seeing new ones emerging.

20. And how about what’s next for Wolf Alice? Any teasers as to what we can expect next – perhaps something that’s inspiring you at the moment?
I just went to see Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in Lithuania. It was amazing and made me excited to make music. I feel as though I am returning to some of the things that influenced me in the past, seeing them through the lens of who I am now.

Sporting head-to-toe leather, her long hair flowing freely around her face, Wolf Alice frontwoman Ellie Rowsell looked every inch the rock star – part Stevie Nicks, part Joan Jett – as she took to the stage last Sunday, delivering a set that brought an already buoyant Green Man 2026 to a rousing close.

Wolf Alice is a band that knows how to shape-shift, slipping deftly between grunge and shoegaze, folk and heavy rock, punk and pop. “I’m always a fan of bands who never write the same song twice,” Rowsell told the Guardian in 2013, two years before Wolf Alice made waves with their debut album, My Love Is Cool – and it’s an ethos that has come to define the north London quartet, who have never used the same producer twice.

On their latest album, The Clearing, that restless spirit takes on a distinctly 1970s flavour, drawing on soft rock, glam and classic pop in what is perhaps the band’s most refined album yet. At the centre is Rowsell: a compelling storyteller, whose lyrics blur personal experience with fictional daydreaming, and a dexterous vocalist who can segue from quiet fragility to an all-out yowl.

It’s been a big year for the band, who since the release of The Clearing last August have headlined increasingly vast venues, including two nights at London’s O2 Arena in December and Finsbury Park in July. “I like playing bigger shows, it feels more unreal and therefore more out of body, which is kind of what I crave,” Rowsell tells us ahead of Green Man, Wales’s best-loved festival, set against the backdrop of the Brecon Beacons. “I also like having a certain level of production because I like having a bit of theatre entwined.”

It was a perfect taste of what was to follow: during the set, Wolf Alice brought arena-level production to the Mountain Stage, veering in typical style from a snarling rendition of their 2017 song Yuk Foo to a dreamy cover of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You, joined by Anna Calvi and Dove Ellis.

Here, the 34-year-old musician sates our curiosity by answering 20 questions.

1. Are there any mantras you live by?
I live by different mantras at different times, I think. At the moment I’m trying to remember that you shouldn’t save things for the next time. “Seize the day” – but maybe “no rehearsal” sounds cooler.

2. What’s one thing you couldn’t live without?
Salt.

3. What’s your earliest memory?
I remember going to school and someone asking me who my favourite Teletubby was. I didn’t know what that meant because I’d never seen Teletubbies before and I remember feeling embarrassed that I was missing out on whatever Teletubbies was.

4. What’s your worst nightmare?
Wet Moth.

5. Can you name a favourite song lyric?
“I just wanted to be one of The Strokes, now look at the mess you made me make”, and it’s the album opener too. Iconic!

6. What film have you watched the most?
Pride and Prejudice, the Joe Wright version.

7. What makes you happy?
Pride and Prejudice, the Joe Wright version.

8. What makes you sad?
People being lonely.

9. If you weren’t a musician, what would you be?
Maybe I’d work in the cinema. I love a cinema foyer – and I like people watching, popcorn and movies.

10. What trip have you always wanted to take?
I want to see the Scottish Highlands. It feels so close and yet so far.

Is there a musician or band that made you think, “I want to do that”? “Kings of Leon. I loved their music … They didn’t seem overly confident, even though they were cool and talented, which made me feel like maybe I could exist in that world as a shy person” – Ellie Rowsell

11. Is there a musician or band that made you think, “I want to do that”?
Kings of Leon. I loved their music, and their haircuts, but mainly their music. They didn’t seem overly confident, even though they were cool and talented, which made me feel like maybe I could exist in that world as a shy person.

12. You and Joff Oddie met via a ‘find a bandmate’-style internet forum. What was your first meeting like? Looking back, was there anything about it that pre-empted what followed?
Oh my god, I don’t really remember. I went with Sadie, who used to be in Wolf Alice. I imagine we weren’t very nice to him. We were very giggly when we were together – especially around boys. I’m sure he had a horrible time, but he put up with it and he’s been putting up with me ever since!

13. Wolf Alice is a famously close band. What’s the secret to remaining friends through it all?
I’m trying to answer this simply but I think there are a lot of factors, actually. Maybe the main thing is to keep the music at the heart of everything and make it the only thing you take seriously.

14. Who’s your ultimate style icon?
At the moment, I like looking at pictures of Marianne Faithfull, Jane Birkin, of course, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry. I dunno, I don’t really dress like any of them, but I like looking at them.

15. The Clearing feels like a more mature album thematically, with ideas around getting older and figuring things out – or not. If you could go back and give young Ellie, just starting out in music, one piece of advice, what would it be?
Take note and pay attention to all the ideas you already have and follow them through. They aren’t stupid and they make you who you are.

16. When you released your album Blue Weekend, you talked about the strange consequences of writing autofictionally – and people feeling entitled when it comes to knowing which lyrics are “true”. Was that something you thought about or made peace with when writing The Clearing?
Yes, that was something that gave me big anxiety with Blue Weekend, and it’s not that I’ve made peace with it exactly, it’s more that I don’t want it to get in the way of me making exactly what I want or need to make. That’s more important than worrying what people think. Maybe…

17. You decided to record The Clearing in LA with producer Greg Kurstin and engineer Julian Burg. It’s the second time you’ve made an album there – although much of it was written in London. How much does the place where you write or record influence the final record?
I think it probably does influence the work in that it influences the vibe. There’s a side to LA that’s very inspiring – the beautiful weather, the musical history, the absurdity of it all – but there’s also a side that makes me feel frustrated and depressed. We were lucky working with Greg and Julian though. The people are more important than the place at the end of the day.

18. You’ve spent so much of this summer playing festivals, alongside your own increasingly huge headline shows. Do you approach festival sets any differently from a venue full of people who’ve specifically come to see you?
Yes, I think at a festival you want to go in all guns blazing. It’s harder to keep people’s attention if they don’t know who you are, so you want to acknowledge that. We keep it more fast paced, and often throw in a cover.

19. Wolf Alice has also been vocal about the need to support emerging musicians in an industry where it’s increasingly difficult to break through without significant financial backing. Which up-and-coming bands or musicians are you most excited about at the moment?
I love Julia Cumming’s debut album. I like an artist called Junior Mesa, and Sekko, Get Down Services, Jacob Alon and Adéla. My brother has made an album that he just needs to put out there too. He’s my favourite new artist [laughs]. I need to see more bands. It’s hard to be in a band so I love seeing new ones emerging.

20. And how about what’s next for Wolf Alice? Any teasers as to what we can expect next – perhaps something that’s inspiring you at the moment?
I just went to see Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in Lithuania. It was amazing and made me excited to make music. I feel as though I am returning to some of the things that influenced me in the past, seeing them through the lens of who I am now.